October: Discomfort

Last month, I decided to be more active in my own life. To actualize my dreams and desires in my present. To put myself first. I created a space to reflect on my current self, established a routine in my everyday life to maintain my physical and mental health, and began to rebuild my confidence from performance to personality. And I'm living for it hehehe 😆

Honestly, I can attribute this growth to creating my vision board the way I have. It's a quarterly vision board that I've hung in my closet. I have my past accomplishments, my future goals, and my themes for the year and the month. 

I spoke about this briefly in my first LifeSTYLE post. (which you can read here if you haven't already). I've created a theme of the year as something to work on, be mindful of, and work towards becoming. So 2025's theme was confidence and consistency. And this is not about specific goals or expectations, but just a reminder on how to move and grow this year.

Thus far, I've stayed true to this theme, and I've had moments this year to reflect on it. I walked in a fashion show, I graduated from college, and now I am creating a brand for myself. While it has taken a great deal of power and faith to push past both internal and external obstacles, I genuinely feel proud of myself.

The themes of the months align with the year's theme. I mentioned last month's theme, discipline, in a previous post. Discipline to me is part of the backbone of confidence and consistency. 

At the beginning of the month, I wanted to start preparing myself to get into a proper routine and schedule so I could be well adjusted when I get a job (which we are still holding out for, so prayers up in the chat 📿🙏). Still, as I went through the process of creating and maintaining a routine, I realized that I truly hate repetitiveness. OMGGGGG I CAN'T STAND IT. 

I thought discipline was doing the same thing at the same time to get consistent results. Still, after many moments of frustration, I realized I needed to make it work for me. I'm a relatively spontaneous person, I'll do whatever, whenever, within reason and caution(peep that Taurus Sun/Sag Moon 😏💪). So with that, I decided that within the routine I create, I'm allowing variation. Same wake-up time, work times, and bedtimes, but instead of designating specific activities and tasks at certain times, like working out or journaling, I fit them into each time block. 

So my mornings are from 5AM to 11AM. I want to work out, journal, shower, and eat breakfast in the morning. I don't designate these tasks at specific times in my morning. If the first thing I want to do is journal, then I'll do that first; if I want to work out first thing, I'll work out. I can do anything within the time block and still be consistent with my routine and habits. Doing this allowed me to feel more relaxed and accomplished in my routine. 

After the month ended, I realized that discipline is about follow-through. It doesn't matter when you do your task or how you do it; it's simply about going ahead and following through. Doing what you said you're going to do, accomplishing what you said you're going to accomplish, that's what discipline is. It doesn't have to be rigid and strict. 

This month's theme is discomfort. My goal for the quarter is to establish myself, grow as a writer, and build community through my interests. I understand that to achieve this, I need to 'put myself out there' —basically, be more visible. 

Throughout my life, I've honestly prided myself on being unnoticed in public. I definitely felt like an extra or background character in my peers and even 'friends' lives. Not really sought after or an initial thought, y'know? While this wasn't the case within my family dynamics, growing up in predominantly white areas, it was very easy to feel like you weren't seen or as important as others. So I never initiated conversations or went out to make friends. While this may sound a little sad, I saw it as protection. Because I wasn't often sought out, I felt that those who did seek me were people I was meant to be in a relationship with. And through various lessons in relationships of all kinds, that's the most untrue and harmful thing I've held on to in my younger years. 

While I have no regrets in the relationships I've formed, maintained, and lost, I've slowly but surely learned from the chronic 'yes, and' I would say to everyone that came into my life. One semester of improv and boom you're a people pleaser. 

Becoming an active participant in my own life means I'm not continuing to wait for things to come to me or blindly following people I thought I was meant to be in a relationship with —platonic or romantic. And while coming to this realization felt like a breath of fresh air, I learned that I had relied on other people to make decisions for me for a long time. Filling in that empty space turned out to be a lot harder than I imagined. 

It's easy being in the background. Nobody's picking you — you're not the topic of conversation, you kinda get to move around under the radar; it's lowkey the dream 🤷. It's like in the intro to SZA's song 'Far' how she talks about how rejection gives you some freedom. But once I started replacing the voices telling me what I should do with my own, and started thinking about who I am and what I want to become, and the various lessons and signs the universe has given me in these 22 years of life… I'm not meant for the background.

AND YALL I'VE TRIED OKAY. 

Rather than avoid it now, I'm deciding to lean in and embrace it. This is an entirely different position I've taken in my life and how I've interacted with others. Many times I've tried to make myself smaller to accommodate others, and that's fucking exhausting to do for 22 years straight, you feel me??

So this month, I'm conquering this lifelong anxiety and fear. I'm getting uncomfortable. I'm making myself known to those who have known me before this moment. Prior to me putting myself first and making decisions without input from others. Prior to me engaging with energy-siphoning lizard minions sent to drag me down to their level. 

So allow me to reintroduce myself. I'm Chloe Alexis. I'm a pretty cool human being who can literally do anything I want. And starting this month, I hope you'll join me in being open, honest, and cunt as I continue to share.

Discomfort is where I can meet the next version of myself.